I Appreciate You

One of the activities that brings me great joy, and some frustration as a Seattle Mariners fan, is watching college and professional sports on TV.  After a game, a player who did exceptionally well is often interviewed about their performance. More likely than not, they finish up these interviews by saying, “I appreciate you” or the shorter version, “appreciate you”. 

I really didn’t think much about this at first but, as I heard it more often inside and outside of sports, I realized that this is more than a simple acknowledgment of an act of kindness. It is a broader appreciation of a person’s presence in someone’s life; their presence in the world; how important a person is to someone else. 

Then, I started to think about the many times in my pediatric practice that patients, parents, and colleagues complimented me or thanked me for some act of kindness. Sometimes this act could be as simple as truly listening to a parent as they recounted the course of their child’s illness or explain what an ear infection actually meant. At these times, I would often hear things like:

“Thank you so much for taking the time to explain that to me. No one else has ever done that before.”

Or

“You really care about your patients. Can I see you again next time”?

Most of the time, when I hear these comments, I brush them off and just say “thank you” back, believing I’m just doing my job. In contrast, if I feel like I’ve fallen short of my own expectations at any point in the day, it sticks to me like a piece of thick Velcro that I can’t pull off the rest of the day. 

What if we were able to allow these short comments of appreciation to stick to us like the opposite “Velcro moments”? What if we could hear these compliments as if someone were saying, “I appreciate you”? What if we also had the presence of mind to notice a colleague’s kind acts and acknowledge how thankful we were for them – not only for what they do but for who they are? 

I often ask my coaching clients what they say when a patient thanks them for taking the time to listen to their questions or explain a diagnosis. They usually have the same reaction I do. They say “thanks” or “no problem”. Then, I give them as assignment.

Next time someone says thanks you or compliments you, respond by saying, “Thank you so much. You made my day!” or “That means a lot to me.”

Then, let is sink in and stick like a piece of Velcro. The more we do this, the more we create those positive neural pathways that bring a sense of self-worth and joy to our day. 

Pretty soon, we’ll realize we hear “appreciate you” from others all the time and slowly start to say it to ourselves also.